As I continue my sea travel journey throughout Europe, I am so reminded of our early critical bonds and alliances.

America ultimately secured her hard-won independence, and endured little interference from her European cousins, bound as they became within colonial entanglement and internecine strife. There did come a time, however, when cousins were called upon to aid their familial bonds. World War I was such a necessary occasion – and surely Americans viewed this as an engagement limited to rendering aid and supply. Nonetheless, Europe’s losses in men and capital were so costly that it affected the prosperity of entire generations and, if truth be told, laid the foundations for World War II.